Towards The Fire
by Zarius
Summary: It was a simple request to look into his eyes, but the manner in which he conveyed it, as firmly, as efficiently, as he could, had left a sensation in Lizzie Warren's body and mind that she was not quite the age to appreciate.


**THE DEMON HEADMASTER**

**TOWARDS THE FIRE**

**WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

* * *

He knew she was there.

Hidden in his office, neatly perched under his desk, trying to make a clean break for it while he put the finishing touches to Blake and sent him along his way, ready to seize the day without a nagging reminder in his mind he was fated for other things.

As the Headmaster had anticipated, Lizzie asked how he knew where she'd be, and why she'd done what she did.

He told her, in the simplest manner, that he had given her a purpose. Given her anarchic background, she had made the perfect subject.

A means of giving his method of student rehabilitation it's most _supreme _test.

Lizzie was of course defiant, and dismissive, she told him she wasn't his subject, and that she would resist his hypnotic powers.

The Headmaster waited patiently for what he knew she would add to the statement, bold and brash as she believed it to be.

It didn't take even a minute for her to realise she'd already been hypnotised previously.

He could sense how raw her anger was, how she visibly grew with anger, collected yet crass, she leaned forward on the desk and told him in no uncertain terms that she would tell anyone she came into contact with, parents, as well as the police. He would be arrested, detained, questioned, he would lose his standing at the school and within society, and he would become a victim an altogether different line of procedure, one that affects more than a tenth of the population.

Teachers like him, whose methods total efficiency, total control, were not built to last. That was the message clever Lizzie Warren was trying to convey with an acid tongue and a look of steel that reflected her determined will.

The Headmaster admired this approach, it was fresh, ferocious, the likes of which had not crossed his mind or his path in all the months he has shaped this school.

He could taste the sheer _poison _in her words. He saw untapped potential in her, her mind would benefit the school effortlessly, only once it had been sharpened like a fine tool.

So impressed was he, that he chose in this instance, to briefly submit himself to her, to give her a false sense of assurance, a validation of her righteousness.

"Yes, I should go, now my secret has been discovered, but before I do, grant me one last favour and look into my eyes"

He gently removed his glasses and looked straight at her, an unspoken force compelling her to remain perfectly still, frozen to the spot she was standing, the fire in her features did not totally diminish, but it was steadily being soothed by a cold and cool echo that, somehow, was jointly connected to the words that were slipping loose from his lips.

And in that moment, their eyes crossed, naked to one another. Lizzie could feel her apprehension dissolve; she felt her blood turn as cold as his.

The Headmaster had a sharp look, one that could kill her where she stood, and yet somehow she felt like she was losing one life she knew and about to experience a side of life she'd never been privy to.

That look could kill, but through her inner pain, as the Headmaster's fresh range of instructions rang through her ears, the soul, torn asunder, revelled in the thrill of new purpose.

She wanted to hold on to this purpose, submit to it, cherish it, love it, but dared not touch it.

She was shackled, chained, and she couldn't shatter them.

The Headmaster reached out towards the fire and, with a precise whisper, snuffed it out.

It was a simple request to look into his eyes, but the manner in which he conveyed it, as firmly, as efficiently, as he could, had left a sensation in Lizzie Warren's body and mind that she was not quite the age to appreciate.

She wanted nothing in this moment but total submission to her new cause.

She could tangibly taste his own words to her now, and the only means of future resistance, to ignite a fresh and fevered fire, was to remind herself of one remarkably painless and enticing truth

She could taste his words.

And, like hers, they were _poison_.


End file.
